Jedi was given to my older brother as a birthday present from an ex-roommate. He didn’t necessarily want or even know how to take care of a cat. We were a dog family growing up. He was given this cat and then raised it like he would’ve a dog. No litter box. If the cat needed to go outside he would go to the door and scratch and someone would let him out. Jedi became pretty independent because of this. Flash forward some years later when I moved to Vancouver and onto my brother’s sofa and myself and Jedi first met.

We never particularly got along. He was messy and had a bad attitude. When I briefly worked at Starbucks, I had to wear a black polo type shirt and khaki pants, which I exclusively bought for the job. Jedi would regularly find these two items of clothing, no matter where they were in the house, and shit inside of them. I would find this out moments before I had to be at work. Fun.

When my brother decided to move in with his girlfriend at the time he asked if I would watch Jedi for a couple weeks until they got settled. After three weeks I called to see if he wanted to pick up his cat and he said, no, and Jedi and I officially became roommates.

During the next several years there was the time he almost killed the neighbour’s cat, executing what was a remarkable dive-and-tackle to pin the poor animal up against a wall and almost claw his face off. Luckily enough, I was standing there. Thoughts of the conversation with the neighbour’s kid about why his cat wasn’t coming home are too much to think about.

Then there was the time he got into another fight and got scratched across the face, which immediately swelled up and filled with fluid and I had to do a home operation on him to drain it. It was really gross and totally upsetting. There was the time he got locked by some neighborhood tough inside of a port a potty on a construction site out front of our old apartment. That was an awful clean up.

There was also the time when I had gone through a bad breakup and, at the same time, had hurt my back to the point where I could barely walk and he slept beside me every day and night and made sure he was extra gentle when he would poke me to fill his food bowl or let him out. There were the times when I was having crippling anxiety attacks and he would sit on my feet or nuzzle his face against my neck until they went away. Finally there was the Saturday morning that Jedi had peacefully passed away, at the age of 21 years old, lying on his favorite pillow in his corner of the floor of my room.

He was really only my cat out of circumstance but I don’t think I could ever have another one. He was a big personality and quite honestly a dick most of the time but was always a great friend when it counted and he is always missed.

Here’s Jedi as a space scoundrel!

Gang Signs album Geist is out and they are touring the east coast for these days:

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About Cheena Jean Normandin

Cheena Jean is a human B-side. She lives in East Vancouver and believes ferociously that the Internet requires more cats on it. She loves her local music scene a whole bunch and probably also really wants to be your friend.